Iran to attract $30bn for power projects

Iran’s Energy Minister Hamid Chitchian says the country has devised serious plans to overhaul its power industry within the next five years, adding that those plans need a collective investment of $30 billion to be materialized.

Chitchian was quoted by the media as saying that the plans designed for the overhauling of Iran’s power industry include building new power plants, repairing and upgrading the current ones, as well as developing a smart national power grid.

He has told Trend news agency that Iran’s current power output is 75,000 megawatts, adding that this will increase by 26,500 within the next five years. Chitchian also emphasized that Iran’s power output would reach as high as 125,000 megawatts before 2026.

Within the next five years, he said, Iran would be producing around 5,000 megawatts of electricity from renewable resources.

Chitchian further emphasized that e average efficiency of power plants in Iran stands at 37.7 percent, but added that the figure would improve in the five years ahead.

“Iran will use new turbines of classes F and H with efficiencies around 40 percent. Iran itself is producing class E power plants with efficiencies of 33 percent,” he told Trend.

Iranian officials had earlier announced that the country’s power industry is facing an average growth of 5 percent in demand a year. They have emphasized that this calls for building 5,000 megawatts of additional power generation capacity each year.

The country needs to invest $7-8 billion a year in its power generation and distribution sector in order to keep pace with its growing demand, the head of Iran Power Transmission, Generation and Distribution Company (Tavanir) said last year.